What is Singleton institute?
Founded by Olivier Basso, and based in Brussels, Singleton Institute is a pioneer catalyst of corporate entrepreneurship within large companies.
Our ambition is to accelerate the development of corporate entrepreneurs in large companies.
We help companies to :
- Identify where entrepreneurial initiatives already happen in the organization in order to exploit momentum
- Inspire entrepreneurial behaviors to managers
- Build an enabling context for intrapreneurs
- Structure a corporate venturing program, from opportunity recognition to the effective launching of internal ventures
- Go beyond innovation and create new businesses
According to the specific context, we can act as consultants, lecturers, facilitators, coaches…and provide the right facilitating team tailored to your needs.
About Olivier Basso
As an entrepreneur :
I have developed a sound experience in launching new ventures and innovative projects within different industries (catering service for office meetings, mail-order audio books business, consulting, educational…), in different organizational contexts (from scratch, within a corporate setting) with different kinds of players (institutions, individuals, groups..).
I have found that the most difficult entrepreneurial projects are those that have to be launched in an already existing organization. They are always perceived as sources of confusion and chaos by the corporate immune system which can’t really understand the creative process of a venture creation…
Hence, I have been acting for 15 years as an expert in accompanying corporate entrepreneurs and their internal ventures along their way, through consulting, teaching, researching and coaching.
As a senior consultant:
In the early 1990’s, I co-founded and led during 6 years a strategy-consulting boutique, with a team of up to 20 consultants, assisting French start-ups in strategy formulation, in business-plan design, and implementation.
As such, I have also been involved in several diversification projects for large companies seeking out to develop new businesses through internal ventures; some of them happen to turn out to be very successful such as Carminat or GlobCast.
I have also conducted an extensive study on the different ways some major companies use to develop their entrepreneurial drive. For more details, see the study « Entrepreneurial dynamics in large groups ».
Other assignments involve a detailed diagnosis of the organizational culture of a major European industrial group willing to foster an entrepreneurial spirit, a close analysis followed by propositions for the new design of the Innovation entity of a large diversified company, the making of a significant 8 project based learning program, the strategic coaching of some intrapreneurs …
As a faculty:
I was an Associate Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at ESCP Europe during 6 years and teach in different institutions such as HEC Geneve where I am currently in charge of a three day MBA module devoted to Intrapreneurship.
I am used to teach New Ventures Development, Corporate Entrepreneurship and Change Management in MS and MBA programs in different business schools (ESCP-EAP/France, San Andres/Argentina, Rotterdam Business School/The Netherlands, HEC Genève/Switzerland…).
I created and led several learning programs such as a specialized Master’s international program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (ESCP Europe).
I have been also involved, as an expert or an academic director, in different executive programs designed with international institutions such as Duke University, Babson College, ESADE, Thunderbird University…
As a researcher:
I have dedicated some time to reflecting upon my entrepreneurial experience in order to extract some valuable take-outs for practitioners and scholars. Hence I have written several books and articles on innovation and intrapreneurship. I define myself as a “pracademic” and I strive to link conceptual frameworks to real life issues in order to be relevant when it comes to deciding and taking actions.